Malted Milk Blondies

Hey Ho! Cookie Madness is starting the week with some malty deliciousness from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. For those of you not familiar with the topic, Baked is a popular bakery in Brooklyn which became slightly famous when Oprah Winfrey named their brownies as one of her favorite things.

But there’s more to Baked than just brownies. The book has all kinds of easy-to-make recipes with clever little twists; for instance, blondies with malt. The Baked guys called the brownies “Brewer’s Brownies” because they use malt from a local brewery. But knowing that the general public (that’s us) would have difficulties getting actual malt, they modified the recipe so that it could be made with malted milk powder such as Carnation, Ovaltine or Horlick’s.

If you’re not ready to buy the book yet, you can grab the original recipe off NPR or use my half-batch modified version.

Chocolate chip bars or blondies made with malt balls and malted milk powder.

Author: Cookie Madness

Recipe type: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Serves: 16

Ingredients

1 cup plus 3 tablespoons all purpose flour (5 oz)

3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon malted milk powder

7 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, cut into 1-inch cubes

3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons firmly packed dark brown sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup chopped malt balls

1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/3 cup toasted walnuts, chopped

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 inch metal pan with non-stick foil or line with regular foil and spray with cooking spray.

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and malted milk powder; stir well and set aside.

Beat the butter and brown sugar until creamy. By hand or using lowest speed of your mixer, stir in the egg and vanilla (don’t beat the egg too much); Stir flour mixture into butter mixture in three parts. When last flour addition is almost blended, add malt balls, chocolate and walnuts and mix until flour disappears

Bake in the center of the oven for 25 to 27 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the blondies comes out clean.

Transfer to a wire rack and let cool. Grasp foil, lift from pan and score into 12 bars. The guys from Bake say these are good warm. I'm sure they are, but I liked them better after they’d set.

Comments

First of all, I LOVE your website and cookie experiments. So creative and inspiring. (Also, I love the hummus recipe you posted in the appetizers section. It’s now a standard in my house!)

About Baked–I went to the Charleston shop recently and was so impressed with their desserts. They are known for their brownies & blondies, but actually, my favorite item was the Chocolate Cloud cookie! I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of them, but they are dark, rich, and chewy. Crackly on the outside and gooey in the middle with a very shiny appearance. I’ve been trying to recreate the recipe ever since and haven’t quite gotten it yet–but the Shiny Happy Choc. Cookies you made are a close second!

I’d be interested to see if other bloggers have given a Baked Chocolate Cloud Copycat recipe a try! Thanks again for your dedication to the baking world!

I made these a month or so ago, and they are amazing! My husband is a huge fan of anything malt-flavored, so I sent them to work with him to get them out of the house. They were gone in no time!

Have you tried the Sweet & Salty Cake from the book? I’ve decided that I will make that for myself for my birthday next month…well, actually my husband said he and the kids would *try* to make it, but I’m not sure I trust them with something so complicated… ;o)

I finally made these, mine took a few extra minutes to bake. My malted milk powder was hard as a rock, but I chiseled some off and zapped it in my mini food-processor and it came back to life. These are just great. Thanks!